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Lords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the World, by Liaquat Ahamed
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It is commonly believed that the Great Depression that began in 1929 resulted from a confluence of events beyond any one person's or government's control. In fact, as Liaquat Ahamed reveals, it was the decisions made by a small number of central bankers that were the primary cause of the economic meltdown, the effects of which set the stage for World War II and reverberated for decades. In Lords of Finance, we meet the neurotic and enigmatic Montagu Norman of the Bank of England, the xenophobic and suspicious Émile Moreau of the Banque de France, the arrogant yet brilliant Hjalmar Schacht of the Reichsbank, and Benjamin Strong of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, whose façade of energy and drive masked a deeply wounded and overburdened man. After the First World War, these central bankers attempted to reconstruct the world of international finance. Despite their differences, they were united by a common fear-that the greatest threat to capitalism was inflation-and by a common vision that the solution was to turn back the clock and return the world to the gold standard. For a brief period in the mid-1920s, they appeared to have succeeded. The world's currencies were stabilized, and capital began flowing freely across the globe. But beneath the veneer of boomtown prosperity, cracks started to appear in the financial system. The gold standard that all had believed would provide an umbrella of stability proved to be a straitjacket, and the world economy began that terrible downward spiral known as the Great Depression. As yet another period of economic turmoil makes headlines today, the Great Depression and the year 1929 remain the benchmark for true financial mayhem. Offering a new understanding of the global nature of financial crises, Lords of Finance is a potent reminder of the enormous impact that the decisions of central bankers can have, of their fallibility, and of the terrible human consequences that can result when they are wrong.
- Sales Rank: #5274181 in Books
- Published on: 2009-04-27
- Formats: Audiobook, CD, Unabridged
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 15
- Dimensions: 6.90" h x 1.80" w x 6.90" l, 1.01 pounds
- Running time: 18 Hours
- Binding: Audio CD
Amazon.com Review
Amazon Exclusive: Liaquat Ahamed on the Economic Climate
In December 1930, the great economist Maynard Keynes published an article in which he described the world as living in “the shadows of one of the greatest economic catastrophes in modern history.” The world was then 18 months into what would become the Great Depression. The stock market was down about 60%, profits had fallen in half and unemployed had climbed from 4% to about 10%.
If you take our present situation, 16 months into the current recession, we're about at the same place. The stock market is down 50 to 60 percent, profits are down 50 percent, unemployment is up from 4.5% to over 8%.
Over the next 18 months between January 1930 and July 1932 the bottom fell out of the world economy. It did so because the authorities applied the wrong medicine to what was a very sick economy. They let the banking system go under, they tried to cut the budget deficit by curbing government expenditure and raising taxes, they refused to assist the European banking system, and they even raised interest rates. It was no wonder the global economy crumbled.
Luckily with the benefit of those lessons, we now know what not to do. This time the authorities are applying the right medicine: they have cut interest rates to zero and are keeping them there, they have saved the banking system from collapse and they have introduced the largest stimulus package in history.
And yet I cannot help worrying that the world economy may yet spiral downwards. There are two areas in particular that keep me up at night.
The first is the U.S. banking system. Back in the fall, the authorities managed to prevent a financial meltdown. People are not pulling money out of banks anymore—in fact, they are putting money in. The problem is that as a consequence of past bad loans, the banking system has lost a good part of its capital. There is no way that the economy can recover unless the banking system is recapitalized. While there are many technical issues about the best way to do this, most experts agree that it will not be done without a massive injection of public money, possibly as much as $1 trillion from you and me, the taxpayer.
At the moment tax payers are so furious at the irresponsibility of the bankers who got us into this mess that they are in no mood to support yet more money to bail out banks. It is going to take an extraordinary act of political leadership to persuade the American public that unfortunately more money is necessary to solve this crisis.
The second area that keeps me up at night is Europe. During the real estate bubble years, the 13 countries of Eastern Europe that were once part of the Soviet empire had their own bubble. They now owe a gigantic $1.3 trillion dollars, much of which they won’t be able to pay. The burden will have to fall on the tax payers of Western Europe, especially Germany and France.
In the U.S. we at least have the national cohesion and the political machinery to get New Yorkers and Midwesterners to pay for the mistakes of Californian and Floridian homeowners or to bail out a bank based in North Carolina. There is no such mechanism in Europe. It is going to require political leadership of the highest order from the leaders of Germany and France to persuade their thrifty and prudent taxpayers to bail out foolhardy Austrian banks or Hungarian homeowners.
The Great Depression was largely caused by a failure of intellectual will—the men in charge simply did not understand how the economy worked. The risk this time round is that a failure of political will leads us into an economic cataclysm.
From Bookmarks Magazine
Almost all critics praised Lords of Finance for its command of economic history and engaging, lucid prose. Ahamed, noted the New York Times, illuminates wise parallels between the misplaced confidence that spawned the global depression in the 1930s and the illusory calculations of risk that led to the current financial crisis. His compelling biographies also personalize economic history. While critics disagreed about whether lay readers will, in a century's time, care about Norman, Moreau, and Schact, the only negative words came from the Wall Street Journal, which criticized Lords of Finance for an imprecise understanding of the gold standard: "Harrumphing about the ‘gold standard,' Mr. Ahamed reminds me of the fellow who condemned ‘painting' because he had no use for Andy Warhol."Copyright 2009 Bookmarks Publishing LLC
Review
"Ahamed...easily connects the dots between the economic crises that rocked the world during the years his book covers and the fiscal emergencies that beset us today." ---The New York Times
Most helpful customer reviews
12 of 12 people found the following review helpful.
Worth the read!
By Jackie McCauley
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful.
Full of Useful Information But Conclusions are Arguable
By Erez Davidi
Lords of Finance is a financial history of the western world from after War World I through the roaring twenties and, later on, the Great Depression. It does so in a unique way by following the lives of the four most important central bankers (Germany, France, US, and Britain) at the time.
As the title suggests, the author puts most of the blame on the central bankers. He cites two main reasons that led to the Great Depression. The first is the reparations that Germany was forced to pay to the Allies after WWI that put an unbearable burden on Germany's economy. The second is the gold standard that prevented the central bank from increasing the money supply, which, according to the author, could have prevented the Great Depression.
I won't dive into the exact details, but I would like to point out that the author's conclusions are not very conclusive. He completely ignores economic policies implemented by Hoover in reaction to the unfolding crisis, which some economists argue prolonged the Depression. Monetary policy plays a vital role, but it's not the whole story. He puts most of the blame on the central banks, which failed to inflate the money supply enough. However, he also fails to mention that in 1920 the US economy suffered from double digit unemployment, and that the Dow had crashed by 47%. The Fed and Washington's response to that severe slowdown was to do nothing; surprisingly the economy recovered a year later.
Lords of Finance is a good book for its data and great writing, however, it's less valuable for its conclusions and analysis.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful.
Not the caliber of a Pulitzer
By MDCRABGUY
Personally I believe this book won a Pulitzer due to it's timing rather than literary merit. It provides a survey of economic conditions following WWII through WWII reviewing economic conditions that led to the Great Depression. One of my issues is David Hoffman goes into great detail about personalities, way beyond what is needed. The first x chapters are dedicated to the four principle bankers/financiers providing their personal backgrounds and very minimal historical background. In addition, throughout the book he provides personalities for every indivdual that is introduced with way too comments about frivilous details. I found it distracting and took away from the flow. For example, he comments on dinner menus, at the Bretton Woods Conference he discusses how some guests excerised above Keynes room most likely disrupting his rest.
If I scored the epilogue I would Give Lords of Finance a one. David Hoffman injects values based on ecomics first presented by Keynes and applied post-WWII. The author invokes his 21st century value and knowledge of the world leaders, and injects the idea that Benjamin Stong of England would have taken a different course of action 1931 to possibly avoid the depression or at least lessen its impact. This is complete conjecture, particularly when when Hoffman finds these economic leaders, including Stong making mistakes at every step following. His analysis for the economic collapse is correct, but please do not inject current understands of ecomic forces as being available and understood by these individuals or their contemporaries. Keynes was the lone voice, but at the time his theories were new, untested, and considered radical.
On the positive side Lords of Finance provides a very good survey of the activities that led to the Great Depression following WWI. The book is written is not technical and are easy to follow. Keynes insight to present alternative economic approaches and counter balance the decisions and actions of the four world economic leaders. The storyline picks up with each chapter particularly after 1921. Several simple graphs are used to demonstrate the imbalances and economic weaknesses.
When reading a historical account I want to be brought into the period and have a sense of what individs were thinking and feeling. Lords of Finance did not capture the emotions of the period. Of course it discusses the hardships, but does not bring it to the personal level. Nor does he provide the emotional responses these four leaders were feeling. What the book presents is an accounting of the numerous missteps leading to the Great Depression following WWI. Hhhhh
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